This is a reissue (first time on CD) of the seminal album by legendary German clarinetist/composer Rolf Kuhn (born 1929), recorded with a quintet, which also included his younger brother pianist/composer Joachim Kuhn (born 1944), bassist Klaus Koch and two Polish Jazz legends: saxophonist Michał Urbaniak and drummer Czesław Bartkowski. The album presents six pieces: three original compositions by Rolf Kuhn, two original compositions by Joachim Kuhn and one arrangement of a folk tune. Over the years this album achieved a legendary status and became a highly sought after collector's item, because of its political implications, as well as being one of the earliest East European Jazz recordings and an important cornerstone of European Jazz in general.
“How often do we step back and realize what a gift it is to have this music in our life?” asks acclaimed trumpeter, composer and Greenleaf Music founder Dave Douglas. On Gifts, his newest Greenleaf project, Douglas harnesses that feeling of simple wonder with a new book of pieces and four intriguing takes on Strayhorn songs, premiering a new quartet with poll-sweeping tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and two members of the Oscar-nominated post-rock trio Son Lux: guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang. The sound is harmonically spacious, with no bass, but a full, sonically adventurous guitar palette from Bhatia that frames the group’s trumpet-tenor melodic concept in fresh and unexpected ways.